


Of Great

by Clouds_In_My_Coffee



Series: What Is Lost Can Be Found (It's Obvious) [2]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boys are alive, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Flynn's Birthday, Love Confessions, Luke's POV, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29036292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clouds_In_My_Coffee/pseuds/Clouds_In_My_Coffee
Summary: To Luke, it had always been a given. The sky was blue, Hendrix was the best guitarist who had ever lived and Julie was the fourth member of Sunset Curve.So how could she have not known that?—At Flynn's eighteenth birthday party, Luke and Julie try to deal with their recent fight and their feelings for each other.(Luke POV/Companion Piece to "Standing on the Edge")
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Series: What Is Lost Can Be Found (It's Obvious) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2130210
Comments: 22
Kudos: 181





	Of Great

Most of the time, Luke didn’t mind working the mid-shift at The Grind. The drinks were good, the pay was decent and the people were friendly.

Most of the time.

Other times—like now, for instance—he was forced to deal with the inevitable Karens who cropped up. Those who tried to be trendy by sampling off-the-beaten-path coffee shops but ultimately ordered their hyper-specific go-to’s.

“Yeah, so,” the blonde forty-something in front of him was saying. She wore a Lulu Lemon jacket and a displeased expression. She reminded Luke of his Aunt Kirsten—his mom’s sister—who was always _such_ a delight at family functions. “I believe I asked for half-caff.”

Luke opened his mouth to tell her that the drink she was holding was indeed half-decaf, but she kept right on. “Look, I can tell when something has too much caffeine, OK? And this,” she shook it to make her point, “has too much caffeine.”

Her blue eyes slid to the tattoos peeking out from beneath the rolled-up sleeves of Luke’s shirt. “But maybe you’re just… _new_ at this.”

‘New’ definitely wasn’t the word she was using in her head.

Luke wanted to tell her that he had been working at The Grind for almost six months now. But behind him at the till, he could feel Willie’s gaze as he rung up cake pops for the two teen girls standing awkwardly by the counter.

“So I would like this drink remade, ’kay? Half-caff this time.”

Luke grit his teeth and looked up at the wrought-iron clock on the wall. Thirty minutes left of his shift. He could do this. “Of course,” he said. Before scooping the cup out of her hands and dumping it down the drain. The woman looked startled, but Luke was anything but. He remade the drink and plopped it down a little too hard on the counter in front of him.

“Enjoy your order, ma’am,” he said, mustering his best Customer Service smile. She lifted it and took a tentative sip. The Aviator sunglasses on top of her head reflected the backlit menu above Luke’s. She opened her mouth to say something else, but her phone began to ring at top volume. _Barbie Girl._ Figured.

“Yes?” she said, into the phone. “Yes.” Again, with more annoyance. “OK, I’m coming, Marlene.” And then she was out the door, stalking away as if that had been her intent all along.

“Did you put any regular in it at all?” Willie’s voice asked quietly from his left. The girls he had been serving were gone, and he was now wiping down the surface beneath the espresso machine.

“Nope.” Luke’s voice popped on the ‘P.’

Willie’s manbun shook as he laughed. “Can’t blame you, man.” He stopped cleaning to bump his fist to Luke’s.

When he clocked out twenty minutes later, Luke rewarded himself by taking two drinks of his own. Days like this made him grateful for his friends. And for Sunset Curve, which was taking off so fast that he couldn’t help but feel like his days as a barista might be coming to an end soon.

* * *

Reggie worked at the comic book shop down the street, and Alex was putting himself through his first year of community college with two work-study gigs (one at the campus library and one in the mailroom). The work-during-the-day thing allowed for the playing-gigs-at-night thing. Which suited Sunset Curve just fine.

To say that the band had gained popularity since they graduated high school would be an understatement. Ever since they had played at Eats & Beats that summer, the gigs had been rolling in. Luke couldn’t help but feel thankful to Flynn, who had stepped in to help them keep track of their ever-increasing social calendar (rising to the call when they had accidentally doubled-booked themselves in August).

As Luke pushed through the door of Comixx, he balanced his spearmint tea in one hand and Reggie’s caramel macchiato in the other. The shop was vacant, with the exception of Reggie and the older gentleman he was helping. Together, they rifled through a selection of glossy paperbacks that bore the title _Star Wars_ : _Rebels and Rogues_.

Luke beelined for the front desk so that he could place Reggie’s coffee down and remove his earbuds. _High Hopes_ blasted from the tiny speakers.

As he leaned against the counter, he took a deep pull of his tea and fished his phone from his pocket, thumbing the music aside to skim his notifications. His lock-screen was a picture of him and the boys from graduation, Bobcat-blue caps falling off their heads and Julie squeezed in between them. The picture always made Luke smile—but today, his face froze that way.

Because among the missed texts and the Snaps overlaying that lock-screen was a voicemail.

Nobody but his parents left him voicemails. And it wasn’t some 800 number; it was 213 area code.

213, as in downtown Los Angeles. As in, record-company territory.

Slowly, Luke put the tea down and hit Play.

“Hi, this is Andi Parker from Phantom Records, calling for Luke Patterson,” the tinny voice in the phone started. “You might remember me from your set down at Stella’s last week? We spoke just after the show. Anyway, I wanted to reach out about an opportunity that came up on our touring circuit. We’re on the hunt for an opening act for one of our performers, and we feel like Sunset Curve…”

And just like that, everything stopped.

“Luke? Buddy? You OK?”

And just like that, Reggie was in front of him.

“You are _not_ going to believe this.”

In his haste, Luke practically shoved his phone into Reggie’s hands. He scrubbed the message backward on the screen and pressed the speaker button this time, so that they could both hear it from the start. If there were other people in the comic book shop at this point, Luke paid them no heed.

Fifteen seconds in, Reggie let out a large whoop and caught Luke by the arms. “ _For real?_ Is this for real right now?” Reggie’s name tag bounced up and down on his red flannel shirt as he and Luke jumped around in a circle, laughing and cursing, as if they were nine and not nineteen.

Sound whooshed through Luke’s ears. He felt his face split wide open. This was it—the big break they’d been waiting for.

Reggie backed up to reach for his own phone, and then Alex was there, on speaker, in a hushed whisper: “Reg, this had better be important. I only have a minute before I have to get back in there—”

But Reggie didn’t waste a second. “WE’RE GOING ON TOUR.”

“What?” Alex’s voice yelped through the phone, suddenly louder. More alert. There was a thud that indicated he had dropped something. The phone, maybe?

And then he was back, and it was all pouring out of Luke’s mouth. Their performance last week. Bumping into an exec after the show. The woman placing two crisp business cards firmly into Luke and Julie’s palms—

Julie.

“Wait,” Luke interjected, interrupting himself. “Jules. We gotta call Julie. Oh, my God. She’s gonna freak—”

But his comment was met with startled silence. Both from Reggie, standing in front of him—the smile slipping from his face—and from Alex, on the phone.

Silence was Luke’s least favorite sound. It was the before and the after of long arguments with his mother, the weeks of hushed annoyance that fell between them during extended disagreements and the disappointment that weighed between beats of his parents’ questions of “How was school?” and “Where do you want to go to college?” and “What about getting a job at the bank?”

Which is how he knew he was not going like what came next.

“Uh, Luke?” Alex said. Back to quiet. Reserved. The connection on the phone crackled a bit between them. “Julie’s going to New York.”

And that’s how Luke’s high came floating down.

* * *

Hours later, on the tattered pleather couch they shared in their tiny apartment in Glendale, Luke watched Alex pace back and forth through the narrow space between their folding chair and their coffee table.

It had only been about 45 minutes since they’d gotten off the phone with Andi. The three of them had huddled anxiously around their breakfast bar, Luke doing most of the talking and Alex scribbling down every single relevant (and irrelevant) detail. A summer tour, starting in May. 35-ish cities. 15-ish minutes per set. Opening for an act to be disclosed upon agreement.

They had talked through as much as they could—payment, accommodations, equipment—trying to seem more adult than they actually felt. After all, the notes Alex had been taking were on Snoopy stationery.

Andi had finished the call by telling them to keep an eye out for an email with more info. “And I’ll have my assistant get a meeting on the books,” she added, just before she had hung up. “Let’s plan on bringing you four in around, say, the end of the month?”

 _You four._ Luke’s stomach had twisted uncomfortably. Would they even want the band without Julie? He wouldn’t.

Now, on the couch, his hands itched to fiddle with something. A cup. A pick. His guitar. Whatever. He settled for the old afghan hanging off the armrest. The red blanket was Reggie’s, the couch was a sidewalk find of Luke’s and the apartment was refuge from the pre-graduation life that had been _all_ of their previous households.

“ _Of course_ we have to tell Julie,” Alex was saying. “But we can’t just drop this news on her right now. Like, she has midterms coming up. Don’t you remember how much AP Music Theory sucked?”

Luke did, but what came out of his mouth instead was: “But if we don’t tell her now, she may not be able to get out of Juilliard.”

That made Alex stop and look at him. Even Reggie popped his head out of the kitchen, where he was overcooking a grilled cheese sandwich. (Luke could tell because of the smell, not because he could actually see what Reggie was doing.)

“OK,” Reg said, eyebrows climbing. “Time out. I may not know a lot of things, but I know that you did not mean what you just said.”

Luke groaned, putting his head in his hands. His thumbs hooked into the edges of the beanie covering his ears. “I know, _I know_. But…c’mon. I mean, this is Jules we’re talking about. This is big.” _She’ll want to come on tour_ , he thought privately, swallowing to keep from saying it out loud.

“Yeah,” Alex said, shoving his hands into the kangaroo pocket of his pink hoodie. “That’s why. We need a game plan. We need to do this right.”

Luke didn’t say anything. “Dude…,” Alex prodded. “I know you want her there. Hell, we want her there. But we can’t just go in guns blazing on this. We have to think about what’s best for Julie.”

Luke’s phone, resting on his knee, buzzed with a new text.

 ** _we still on for tmw?_** Julie’s message read.

 ** _Yea_** , Luke typed back, without hesitating. **_Be there at 6:30._**

“Yeah,” said Luke.

* * *

He barely slept that night, and it showed Sunday morning back at the café, where Willie had the day off and Caleb was the on-shift supervisor. Twice, the older man had to remind Luke to ask customers if they needed receipts (they didn’t; who even did anymore?), and at least once every twenty minutes, he was on Luke’s back to buss tables.

“They literally just stood up,” Luke argued, when Caleb shoved the bus tub into his arms for the fourth time that day. The couple across the room hadn’t even picked up their purses yet.

“Then they could use their plates cleared, couldn’t they?” Caleb snapped back.

Which is why Luke found himself breathing a sigh of relief when he clocked out at 6 (mid-shift beat out closing shift by a lot), and made his way to Julie’s for their writing session. Once again, he balanced two drinks—a spearmint tea for himself and a chai tea latte for Jules.

He worked to push down his nerves as his feet traveled the familiar path to her place, feeling like _Mr. Brightside_ was probably a confusing song choice for the trip. As he approached the studio, he saw her already at the piano, curls tied up into a ponytail and the sunset casting a glow over her face. His felt his heartbeat pick up.

Because there was the other issue Luke had to contend with: His feelings for Julie. “Feelings” was probably putting it mildly. He had been dancing around them for almost two years now, trying to keep them in check whenever they’d had their “almost” moments.

Like when he and Jules shared a mic for the first time, and their faces were drawn together like magnets, and her breath fanned across his face. Or like when they slow-danced together at prom (after they had _played_ prom), her head finding the slope of his neck and her lips brushing against the skin there. Or that one night back in June when they’d taken one too many shots at the boys’ graduation party and cuddled up together in an oversized lawn chair, and he’d twisted her hair between his fingers and she had looked up at him with those eyes…

Only for the smoke detectors to go off, forcing everyone out of Reggie’s mom’s house for the night.

_“…how did it end up like this? It was only a kiss. It was only a kiss.”_

Luke swiped the Spotify app closed and rapped on the open studio door with his elbow. “Delivery,” he said. Obviously carrying too many things and pretending he wasn’t. He took a settling breath and reminded himself that he could do this—spend a few hours in their writing bubble—and come back to the rest of it later. When he and the boys had had a chance to work out a plan.

Julie looked up from the piano and smiled—and Luke thought briefly that it felt like coming home. _There’s a lyric in there somewhere_ , Julie would say, had she only known.

“About time you showed up,” she teased instead. “I was wondering if I was gonna have to write this entire second verse by myself.” Hopping up, she circled the enormous instrument to reach for her chai, but Luke held it aloft, just out of reach.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he chided. “You know the rules.”

Julie rolled her eyes and huffed out a laugh, crossing her arms over her loose blue sweater and black leggings. Luke noted that she was wearing the necklace that he had given her, a golden dahlia, and warmed even more. “All right,” she said. “What’ve you got?”

He awkwardly rotated the to-go cup in his hand so that she could see the song title scribbled on its side.

“ _Go Your Owen War_?” she asked, looking amused.

“Aw, c’mon. My handwriting’s not that bad.”

“It kinda is.” She shifted closer to get a better look, and he whiffed peaches and cream. “You’re just lucky I understand your chicken scratch, Mr. Fleetwood Mac, 1977.”

Luke grinned and handed her the cup. He also put down his own, along with his backpack, his phone, his belt chain and, well, all the other crap he was somehow holding onto. The last item to go was his orange beanie, dropped on top of the grand piano next to Julie’s notebook.

“That second verse still trippin’ you up?” he asked. He headed for his guitar in the corner of studio, pulled the strap around himself and circled back to slide onto the bench next to Julie.

“Yeah,” she said. “But I think I figured out a way to build it into the bridge.”

The next few hours were consumed by music, the outside world completely forgotten. Just him and Julie and notes and lyrics. Which is just how Luke liked it.

His only trip-up happened about an hour in, when Julie mentioned that the exec from Phantom Records hadn’t reached out, and his careful strumming became a botched _clang_ across the strings.

“All right there, Patterson?” Julie had stopped to ask.

“Uh, yeah,” he coughed. Swallowed. Tried again. “Yeah, um, that’s weird. So this was a G, right?”

Their rhythm ebbed and flowed. When it was like this, just the two of them, they could make leaps and bounds in the work. Which is how they found themselves with two finished songs by the time the clock read 10:37 p.m.

At some point in the evening, they had moved from the piano to the couch, and at some point in the evening, Julie’s legs had made their way onto Luke’s lap. And at some point in the evening, Luke had stopped looking at Julie’s legs and decided to run his fingers over them instead. When he felt her shiver under his touch, he wondered briefly if she was feeling what he was.

Julie, to her credit, was still clacking away at the keyboard of his laptop, transcribing his chicken scratch and her careful, loopy writing into structured lyrics in a document. She occasionally used the pencil tucked behind her ear to make clarifying marks in the notebook, while Luke hummed quietly to himself. He was still trying to figure out whether it made more sense for him take the melody on that last song or for her to do it when the pencil she had been holding dropped straight out of her hand and rolled across the studio floor. 

Luke thought nothing of it, reaching down over her legs to grab it. But he wasn’t above a little teasing. “Wow, Jules,” he laughed. “Write much?”

Then he saw the look on her face.

The room's energy tilted on an axis. Where there had been a ballad in the air only moments before, there was now a screeching violin.

“What the hell, Luke?” Julie said, whipping the laptop around to face him, and his heart sank. The email from Phantom Records. Of course. “I mean, seriously. What the hell?”

And then Julie was on her feet, her ponytail whipping behind her, and Luke was tripping over his words. “Jules, I didn’t—it’s not what you think—”

“Then what is it?” She stood in front of him, gesticulating, palms facing the ceiling as if to say, _Well?_ "Because to me, it looks a whole lot like Sunset Curve got asked to go on tour, and I didn’t.”

His mind raced. He didn’t know where to start. How to start, even. “Look. No. It’s not a done thing. None of it’s a done thing. I was trying to figure out…” But he paused for a beat too long.

“Figure out what? How to break it to me? Well, I hate to tell you, but—”

“Of course not. Look, I can’t—I’m not supposed to talk about this. I promised the boys—”

“Oh, you _promised the boys_? That’s just great. _They_ both know, but I—”

“Jules—”

“Do NOT ‘Jules’ me right now.”

“Julie.”

“This is just unbelievable, Luke. If I had gotten that email, I would have called you right away—”

 _I wanted to_ , Luke’s mind threw out, but it wasn’t a particularly helpful thought in this moment.

It only escalated from there. Julie firing off very pissed-off questions. Luke unsure how to answer them. Every time he thought he had a way to approach it, Julie pivoted, leaving him feeling helpless and like he couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

“If you didn’t want me to come,” she yelled finally, a sheen of tears now coating her brown, brown eyes, “all you had to do was say so.”

That had him surging to his feet. “Uh-uh. No. No way. It’s not that simple,” he said, anger rising for the first time.

That pushed her. Physically. Across the studio and away from him. She was standing against the piano, and there was an ocean between them. That’s when he heard her choke on a breath. And felt like he couldn’t catch his own.

“Jules,” he said. Softer. “Jules, listen—"

“ _No_ , Luke.” Her voice was cracking now, and Luke was already headed for the piano, eyes trained on the back of her bowed head. When he was halfway to her, she whipped around. Stopped him in his tracks. “This has made things…really, really clear for me. So I hope you and the boys have a great time on tour.”

“Julie.” He didn’t have a choice. He was going to have to bring up Juilliard. But it was a question he didn’t want the answer to, and one he didn’t really know how to ask.

“Get out,” she said, one tear slipping free. And Luke felt like roaring. Like slamming his hand down on a rewind button that didn’t exist. He couldn’t just leave right now—not when everything was broken and he needed to fix it. He opened his mouth, once more, in vain.

“Just go,” she snarled.

And so he did, furiously gathering his laptop and his backpack and his chain and his phone and whatever else he could get his hands on.

It wasn’t until he was halfway home that he gave into that feeling. Screaming loudly and without shame. Warblers startled in the trees above him. And he realized, dimly, apathetically, that he had left his favorite beanie behind.

* * *

That night, the three of them sat on the living room floor, inches from their couch but also miles. And it all came tumbling out of Luke like an avalanche. How Julie had seen the email. How he hadn’t known what to tell her. How he just kept remembering Juilliard and her future and how he couldn’t just say, “Come on tour with us. Please.”

Alex looked angry, probably with Luke, but also with the larger situation. His jaw was set, and his drumsticks were clenched between his fingers. Reggie just looked sad, almost doleful. He offered Luke the cup of lukewarm Earl Grey he had been drinking. And for a while, none of them spoke.

In his mind, Luke just kept seeing the pained look on Julie’s face as she had stood over the piano and said, _“This has made things…really, really clear for me_.” He didn’t know how that could be—when everything was so dark and hazy to him.

“We just…gotta ask her,” he finally said, his voice hoarse from all the screaming. “Straight up. If she turns us down, well….” He swallowed, but it was dry, and his throat ached. He took a sip of Reggie’s tea and found that it had gone cold.

He didn’t want to think about “well.”

* * *

That didn’t stop him from calling. Or texting. Or calling again. (Nor did it stop Alex and Reggie. Though they got the same response, which was none.)

“ _Hi, you’ve reached Julie’s phone. Please leave a message after the tone.”_

Luke started to hear that recording in his dreams. Thought it could be set to music, if he didn’t hate the sound of it so much.

On Monday, his day off, he wrote. Frantically. Feverishly. He started four different songs and didn’t finish a single one.

“ _The waves are crashing_ / _a monster monsoon_ / _heartbeat out of rhythm_ / _world out of tune.”_ He crumpled that one up and tossed it, just missing the garbage can in the bathroom that he and Alex shared. He wrote until his eyes blurred, and by the time dinner rolled around, Reggie was at Luke’s door, carefully asking if he wanted any ramen.

On Tuesday at work, he made the ridiculous hot chocolate concoction that Julie always stopped in for after dropping Carlos off at soccer. He even added extra whipped cream and jotted a gimmee song on the side of the cup: _Bad Moon Rising_. But she never came to get it.

On Wednesday, he forgot the chords to _Bright_ during rehearsal. And some of the lyrics, too. Alex wound up calling it early. Because Julie wasn’t around to berate them about the importance of seeing things through.

By Thursday, Luke was a wreck. And Caleb was back at the till, which meant he was assigned to inventory in the backroom. Luke, who hated doing inventory, felt like this was appropriate, given the how the rest of his week was going.

Then there was Friday, when Luke climbed somberly into Reggie’s beat-up Chevy, and they headed to Flynn’s for the party he wasn’t even sure they were still playing. The birthday girl in question greeted them at the door, with an unimpressed look.

“We uninvited?” he asked, flatly, fully prepared to turn around and drag the amp he was pushing back to Reggie’s truck.

“No,” Flynn said, looking him up and down. “She said she didn’t want me to.” And then she turned on a silver-heeled boot and led them through the house to the backyard, where Willie and Alex were setting up the drumkit on the makeshift stage.

Luke couldn’t help but turn Flynn’s phrase over in his head. _“She didn’t want me to.”_ Maybe Julie just didn’t want to ruin her best friend’s big day. Or maybe…

As they set up and started sound check, his eyes kept glancing stage-right. Almost as if by watching the spot, she would appear. When they were only about five minutes out from showtime, Alex approached him, cautious. “Should I—” He cleared his throat. “Should I set up the mic, you think?” He used one of his sticks to gesture vaguely to the place where Julie’s keyboard usually sat.

And in that moment, Luke felt somehow worse. Because it was true. Julie wasn’t coming. She might never come to another one of their gigs again. And he wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to live with that. “I….”

Alex looked at the ground, subconsciously spinning the drumstick through his fingers. Then he looked back up at Luke.

“I think I’m gonna. Just in case.” But as Alex made his way back to their trunk for an extra mic stand, Julie—in her camo romper and Nikes—burst through the sliding glass doors at the back of Flynn’s house, bolting for the stage. She held her keyboard case under one arm and the stand for it under the other. Kayla trailed her hastily, holding what looked like the rest. The poor thing was teetering hopelessly under the tangle of Julie’s cords.

And Luke’s heart, which hadn’t had rhythm in days, started beating in time again.

The boys swarmed, but Julie batted them away, avoiding their eyes and their questions. Kayla handed the tangle of wires to Julie and wished her luck before disappearing into the crowd.

Feeling like he shouldn’t test his luck (or whatever this was), Luke returned to his mic and tapped it once, twice. Getting into the zone. To give what might be their last performance together.

God. He needed to stop thinking and just…

He strummed out the opening notes of _Flying Solo_. “What up?” he said to the crowd, his voice magnified by the speakers behind him. “We’re Sunset Curve. You guys ready to rock?”

* * *

Even in his post-gig haze (was that the best they’d ever played? That might have been the best they’d ever played), it took Luke an irritatingly long time to extract himself from the backyard. After packing up the equipment and helping Reggie figure out why one of his strings was out of whack (“I dunno, dude. Did you pluck it too hard?”), Luke looked up to find himself alone, except for the two blonde girls making moon eyes at him a few feet away.

“Your band was soooo good,” the taller of the two crooned, when she saw him looking. She was leaning so far over the edge of the stage that she was practically lying on top of it.

“Thanks,” Luke said, no stranger to compliments. He hopped down onto the grass and drained the last of the water from his travel jug.

“Also, your tattoos are, like, totally hot. The music-note ones probably took _forever_.”

They had. And they had hurt like a mother, too. Luke’s eighteenth birthday the previous September had consisted of a pizza dinner with the boys (“We’re not having street dogs on your birthday,” Alex had said), an unbearable spat with his parents and a spontaneous late-night trip to a tattoo parlor, where Julie had watched as he pretended to be chill about a _freaking needle_ piercing his skin.

“This is dumb,” Julie had said, yellow Converse swinging from her chair as she watched with rapt fascination. “But also pretty dope.”

She hadn’t made fun of him when he’d teared up about an hour in, merely reaching out for his free hand and squeezing as he hissed. At the two-hour mark, the tattoo artist had informed him that he’d have to come back the following week to continue the session, and Luke had secretly sighed with relief.

“C’mon, birthday boy,” Julie had said, after he had paid and they had spilled out onto Ventura Boulevard together. She looped her arm through his unbandaged one. “I’ll treat you to some Salt & Straw.”

The tattoos had been the first leap into liberation for Luke. When his mother had found out, it had been the start of World War III at home, and the next week at rehearsal, he drew Alex aside to pitch the idea of living together after graduation.

Alex had jumped at the suggestion. “Uh, _yeah_ ,” he had said, almost automatically. It hadn’t been the response Luke was expecting, as Alex tended to err on the side of caution. That was how Luke knew it had been one of his better ideas. “And Reg?”

“And Reg,” Luke had confirmed.

Now, the tattoos felt like they’d been inked ten years ago, instead of one. “Thanks for coming to watch us,” Luke said, a little awkwardly. “I’m just gonna…” He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb as if say _Head back in_.

He turned and started walking before the girl could say anything else.

* * *

He found Julie in the living room. More time must have passed than he’d thought, because she was now wearing a burgundy dress that Luke couldn’t rip his gaze from. She was standing next to Reg and a bunch of other people—but he didn’t really register anything but that dress and her eyes and— 

She was wearing the necklace.

He didn’t know why, but for some reason, that was what gave him the courage. To move across the space and back into her orbit. He slid down against the wall next to her, Feigning Casual and Failing. (A song title if ever there was one, Luke thought.)

Playing it cool was impossible to do when she looked like _that_ , after all.

“Light My Fire,” he said. It popped out of his mouth before he could stop it. “Band and year.”

He trained his eyes out at the party, looking but not really seeing. He could tell she was contemplating, really considering whether or not she should answer him. She sipped at her solo cup—probably frothy, warm beer from the crappy keg he had spied in the kitchen—and hummed to herself. The prompt hung there between them for a beat too long, and Luke began to wonder if this was it. The beginning of the end, where he had to figure out how to—

“The Doors.” She said it as if it were obvious. Because it was. “1967.”

Breath rushed back through his lungs. Sudden. Startling. Because there it was again, the beating hope that had reared its head when she had rushed onto the stage that night. “Too easy, I know,” he said. “Maybe they’ll throw some Petty in there next.”

He turned his gaze away from the party and back to her, trailing his eyes over her curly hair, free from its ponytail, her eyes—dusted with the same purple glitter Flynn was wearing, and the perfect dip in her dress that showed off her perfect skin…

He wanted to run his tongue along that dip. He wanted to do so much more than that. He wanted to—

Jesus. He had to focus up here.

Rather than speak again, he reached out for her cup, a familiar gesture that he had performed again and again over the years. But it wasn’t until his fingers closed around the plastic that he realized she was relinquishing it. Was it muscle memory for her, too? Or was this an olive branch? Luke really couldn’t tell.

Then he was gagging. It _was_ the beer from the kitchen. He wanted to say something but bit his tongue. Instead, he handed it back, not letting go entirely until he said, desperately: “Hey…can we…go somewhere? Talk?”

And something in his pleading must have come across, because suddenly her hand was in his, and they were marching away from the throng and into an empty bedroom that Luke vaguely recognized as Flynn’s. At least, if the Diplo poster on the wall was any indication. He didn’t take time to survey the space, though. He just wanted to get the words out.

“Jules, I _want_ you to come.”

And then suddenly, they were back in that moment, at the studio, where the amp was cranked up by a million volts and the air crackled around them. But this was round two—and this time, Luke was going to say what he needed to say.

She was yelling again, and Luke was thinking, _Fair. Yes. OK._ But then the most horrifying sentence came out of her mouth, and Luke felt like he had to take three steps back.

“I mean, I know I’m not an actual member of the band or anything, but God forbid—”

“What do you mean you’re not in the band?” It wasn’t a question, but rather a demand. “ _Of course_ you’re in the band.”

Her silence spoke volumes. And Luke felt like he had missed a song in a set. No, he felt like he had missed a performance. Three. Plus a month of rehearsals.

Sure, they had sometimes played without her when she had school stuff, but it wasn’t... How could he have not known? How could she have ever believed...?

He knew he had messed up but never imagined it had been this badly. To him, it had always been a given. The sky was blue, Hendrix was the best guitarist who had ever lived and Julie was the fourth member of Sunset Curve.

“Could’ve fooled me.” Her voice was quiet, wrecked.

Luke stepped forward then, nearly flush with her as she leaned back against small writing desk, and spoke: “Jules…Julie, we wouldn’t _be_ a band without you.” It was true. She made them what they were, with her lyrics and her voice and her incredible ideas.

As he watched tears fall from her eyes for the second time in a week, he felt like crying himself.

“Then why?” she asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because…Juilliard.” His voice cracked on the “’cause,” and he knew then that there was no coming back from this. Whatever transpired in this room tonight would determine what would happen next. And Luke was pretty sure what happened next was that Julie boarded a plane clear across the country and became an even more amazing artist at a school designed for wrecking balls like her.

If tonight was all he had, he was going to say it all.

“God, Jules.” He reached down and pulled her hands to his chest, gripping tight, tight, tight. Could she feel how hard his heart was pounding? It didn’t matter.

He told her everything. How he wanted to call her the minute Andi Parker’s voice came through his speakerphone. How he and the boys had come to a sudden halt, trying to figure out how to bring it to her without making her feel pressured. Why he messed up the chords on that one section during their writing session and played it off as if it were no big deal.

He was word-vomiting, but he didn’t care. He told her how this was her choice, and how he and the boys didn’t want her to miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime. How she deserved to go Juilliard and kick ass. “You have this big chance to do this big thing, and I don’t want to mess it up.”

The silence that followed was agonizing. He waited a moment, two, watching her face for any sign of resignation. Of “Oh, Juilliard— _right_.” But then she surprised him yet again.

“Yeah,” she said, not crying anymore. Her eyes were fire. “Yeah, it is my choice, asshat. So why didn’t you ask me what _I_ want?” Then Julie was pouring it all out herself, telling him that he had never asked her to join the band and why wouldn’t he open his stupid mouth—and Lucas? _She had called him Lucas_.

“What if I don’t _want_ to go to Juilliard, hmm? Did you ever think of that?”

 _She’ll want to come on tour_ , he had thought privately, back in their apartment, almost a week ago. He hadn’t let that thought resurface since, his gut instincts too shaken at the fallout that had occurred. _She_ wants _to come on tour_ , he corrected in his head now.

Then Julie was pushing him back against the opposite wall, and Luke was going willingly, stepping back repeatedly and processing at the same time. She was saying that it was her decision (it was). She was saying that they couldn’t choose for her (they couldn’t).

And then she was looking at him like she had in all of those “almost” moments and saying that she knew what made her happy. And oh, oh, oh.

Luke didn’t waste any time pulling her close and gazing directly into her eyes to make sure. Because he was wrong about a lot of things, but could not—would not—be wrong about this.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Julie’s “Yes” was all that he needed to hear. He gathered her to him, slanting down to capture her lips with his. _Thank God_ , he thought. Or said. Or both. He wasn’t really sure. He skimmed his nose past hers and deepened the caress as she kissed him back, equally as desperate for the feel of him as he was for her. _And wasn’t that something?_

He felt her let out a low whimper, and Luke slid his hands down to her waist to reverse their positions, licking past her lips and tangling her tongue with his. She tasted like beer and Julie, and he couldn’t get enough.

Pressing her back into the wall, he curled his hand behind her head to protect it from whatever crap hung there. And when he pulled his lips from hers, it was only to follow his earlier impulse of kissing his way down her neck and into the dip in her dress. His journey was slow; he wanted to spend years memorizing her skin. When he found her pulse point, he licked and sucked until she gasped, and he felt like that might be his new favorite sound. She threaded her fingers through his hair in return and scratched at his scalp until he shuddered and felt the zip of his jeans pull just a little too tight.

Julie must have felt the need for friction, too, because she shifted one leg up around his waist, and he took the cue for what it was. When he lifted her to him, they shared a groan as their hips aligned, and he curled his fingers around her to help them move in sync.

It was later, much later, when he had pulled the straps of her dress down, and he was mouthing at the skin between her breasts ( _I’m dreaming, I’ve gotta be dreaming_ , he thought) that he felt her pull back, lessen the pressure. And so he followed suit—helping her move the red fabric back up and over her shoulders. He placed her back on the ground and smiled when she reached for his arms to steady herself.

He rested his forehead against hers and let himself bask in it for a moment. Because Julie Molina felt the same way about him, and that was worth going through a hundred arguments if this is where they netted out.

He finally apologized—the words flooding out of him in a rush—and she reminded him that they weren’t through talking about this. But she fought a smile as she said it. And Luke found himself matching it as they straightened themselves out and Julie led him out of Flynn’s room, back into the crowded mass that was her best friend’s birthday party.

* * *

When Luke, Reggie and Alex arrived back at Flynn’s the following morning, they came bearing reinforcements, in the form of trash bags, Swiffers and Clorox wipes.

While the Palmers wouldn’t be back from their San Francisco trip until at least 5 p.m., the boys were no strangers to post-party clean-ups and knew that this one would be a doozy. As they were unloading Reggie’s truck, Willie’s Honda pulled up behind them, and Luke saw him wave a tray of coffees out the window. 

“Aw, babe,” Alex called, a million-watt smile spreading across his face.

“Gotta grab ’em quick, Hot Dog,” Willie replied, grinning just as brightly. “Before Caleb notices I took a thirty instead of a fifteen.”

Drinks in hand, the boys approached the house with trepidation. A hungover Flynn, they had learned, was not a friendly Flynn. But it was Julie who answered their knock, standing in the doorway in her emoji pajamas and her glasses, hair tied into a tight knot on top of her head.

“Morning, Julie,” Reggie murmured, as he lightly hip-checked her to get through the door. “Morning,” Alex echoed nervously, holding up a latte for her to grab, before he too disappeared inside. Both had offered their own apologies late last night, when the alcohol had been flowing and the feelings had been, well, present.

“Sup?” Luke said, arms full of trash bags. In the light of day, the air was stiller—and for a weird, tenuous moment, he wondered if he had imagined it all. Then Julie reached up for his Pink Floyd T-shirt and dragged him down for a kiss that was probably not safe for work.

“Morning” was all she said when she let him go. He wanted to reel her back in, but his hands were full and she was already turning back to lead him through the trashed living room and into the kitchen.

There, they found Flynn wrapped in a fuzzy pink bathrobe, sitting on the counter next to the coffee maker and rubbing the heel of her palm into her forehead.

When Alex placed a spiced pumpkin latte in front of her, she glared out at him from between her fingers. “So,” she said, “when were y’all gonna tell me I was scheduling an entire tour for Sunset Curve?”

Leave it to Flynn to cut to the chase.

“Well,” Luke said, dropping the trash bags on the kitchen island and stealing his own cup from the pile. He popped the top off to inhale the comforting smell of spearmint. “That depends.”

“Don’t play games with me, Patterson,” Flynn said. “It’s too damn early.”

“Technically, it’s eleven a.m.,” Reggie piped up, but a warning glare from Alex silenced him.

Next to Luke, Julie’s hand lay on the kitchen counter, and he reached for it, threading his fingers through hers. He glanced back at Reggie and Alex, and they shared a meaningful look before he replied.

“Well, we were thinking,” he said. “Maybe you could schedule an entire tour for Julie and the Phantoms instead.”


End file.
